Margaret Atwood Quotes about Art

All Margaret Atwood Quotes Age Anarchy Art quotes Attitude Belief Character Childhood Children Choices Church Country Dancing Darkness Democracy Desire Devil Dictatorship Doubt Dying Eating Emptiness Energy Envy Evil Fate Fear Feelings Fighting Film Fun Gardening Giving Grace Graduation Greed Growing Up Hate Heart Heaven Home House Humanity Hunger Hurt Ignorance Inspirational Inspiring Internet Jesus Jimmy Language Leaving Life Literacy Literature Love Luck Lying Morning Myth Nature Pain Past Patience Poetry Prayer Purpose Reading Reality Revenge Romance Running School Science Fiction Silence Skins Sleep Soul Storytelling Study Suffering Survival Teaching Technology Temptation Time Today Trade Truth Understanding Virtue Waiting Wall War Water Wealth Writing

The male frog in mating season, said Crake, makes as much noise as it can. The females are attracted to the male frog with the biggest, deepest voice because it suggests a more powerful frog, one with superior genes.

The male frog in mating season," said Crake, "makes as much noise as it can. The females are attracted to the male frog with the biggest, deepest voice because it suggests a more powerful frog, one with superior genes. Small male frogs—it's been documented—discover if they position themselves in empty drainpipes, the pipe acts as a voice amplifier and the small frog appears much larger than it really is." So?" So that's what art is for the artist, an empty drainpipe. An amplifier. A stab at getting laid.

Margaret Atwood

Art, Powerful, Voice

Margaret Atwood (2004). “Oryx and Crake”, p.168, Anchor

As an artist your first loyalty is to your art. Unless this is the case, you're going to be a second-rate artist. I don't mean there's never any overlap. You learn things in one area and bring them into another area. But giving a speech against racism is not the same as writing a novel. The object is very clear in the fight against racism; you have reasons why you're opposed to it. But when you're writing a novel, you don't want the reader to come out of it voting yes or no to some question. Life is more complicated than that. Reality simply consists of different points of view.

Margaret Atwood

Loyalty, Art, Writing

Source: www.motherjones.com

There's nothing like drawing a thing to make you really see it.

Margaret Atwood

Art, Drawing

Margaret Atwood (2014). “The MaddAddam Trilogy Bundle: The Year of the Flood; Oryx & Crake; MaddAddam”, p.526, Anchor

As an artist your first loyalty is to your art. Unless this is the case, you're going to be a second-rate artist.

Margaret Atwood

Loyalty, Art, Firsts

Interview with Marilyn Berlin Snell, www.motherjones.com. July, 1997.

So that’s what art is, for the artist,” said Crake. “An empty drainpipe. An amplifier. A stab at getting laid.

Margaret Atwood

Art, Empty, Said

Margaret Atwood (2004). “Oryx and Crake”, p.168, Anchor

When any civilization is dust and ashes," he said, "art is all that's left over. Images, words, music. Imaginative structures. Meaning—human meaning, that is—is defined by them. You have to admit that.

Margaret Atwood

Art, Dust, Civilization

Margaret Atwood (2004). “Oryx and Crake”, p.167, Anchor

art happens. It happens when you have the craft and the vocation and are waiting for something else, something extra, or maybe not waiting; in any case it happens. It's the extra rabbit coming out of the hat, the one you didn't put there.

Margaret Atwood

Art, Waiting, Crafts

Margaret Atwood (1984). “Second words: selected critical prose”, Beacon Press, 1984

Popular art is the dream of society; it does not examine itself.

Margaret Atwood

Dream, Art, Society

Margaret Atwood (2006). “Waltzing Again: New and Selected Conversations with Margaret Atwood”

The heart with letters on it shining like a light bulb through the trim hole painted in the chest, art history.

Margaret Atwood

Art, Light, Shining

Margaret Atwood (2012). “Surfacing”, p.43, Simon and Schuster

When faced with the inevitable, you always have a choice... As I learned during my liberal arts education, any symbol can have, in the imaginative context, two versions, a positive and a negative... If you spill your milk you're left with a glass which is either half empty or half full... You may not be able to alter reality, but you can alter your attitude towards it, and this, paradoxically, alters reality. Try it and see.

Margaret Atwood

Inspirational, Graduation, Art

"Attitude". Margaret Atwood's commencement address at the University of Toronto, Canada, www.humanity.org. June 14, 1983.

The cemetery has ... an inscription: 'Though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death I will Fear No Evil, For Thou Art With Me.' Yes, it does feel deceptively safer with two; but Thou is a slippery character. Every Thou I've known has had a way of going missing.

Margaret Atwood

Art, Character, Two

Margaret Atwood (2007). “The Blind Assassin: A Novel”, p.44, Anchor